This paper examines the effect of the structure of supply chain networks on productivity and innovation capability through knowledge diffusion, using large firm-level panel data for Japan. We find that ties with distant suppliers improve productivity, as measured by sales per worker, possibly...

In this study, we aim at quantifying the permanent socio-economic impacts of the Great Hanshin-Awaji (Kobe) Earthquake in 1995. We employ a large scale panel data of 1,719 wards (shi, ku, cho, son) from Japan over almost three decades. In order to overcome a fundamental difficulty of obtaining a...

This study constructs a monthly series of industry-specific real effective exchange rates (I-REERs) based on the producer price indices of nine Asian economies from 2001 to 2014. To check the usefulness of the I-REERs as a measurement of international price competitiveness, we calculated the...

Recently, many small and medium enterprises in the Japanese food manufacturing industry have expanded their business overseas through export. In this study, we explore the determinants of exporting activity at the plant-level, paying particular attention to product price and quality as well as...

Using Japanese municipal dataset between 1980 and 2010, this paper empirically analyzes the underlying mechanism of interregional labor migration. Since the existing literature shows that regional disparities in unemployment rates have decreased gradually, our main concern is to uncover how the...

The Federal Reserve Board (FRB) of the United States has decided to end its quantitative easing monetary policy as the global financial crisis is subsiding there. It is expected that it will raise the federal funds (FF) rate from almost zero in the near future. Large amounts of money which...

This paper derives a new monthly index of real economic activity for Japan for the period 1960 to 2013. The index shows a similar behavior to that of the real gross domestic product (GDP). The correlation coefficient based on annual data and quarterly data is 0.94 and 0.90, respectively....

This paper attempts to estimate the quarterly equilibrium exchange rates (EER) of nine Asian currencies (Japan, China, Korea, Hong Kong, Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Philippines) with the Behavioral Equilibrium Exchange Rates (BEER) from 2006 to 2014. The BEER was compared with...

Under unstable global economic conditions and an increasing competition for customers in the emerging markets of lower income countries, Japanese automotive parts manufacturers and assemblers are striving to minimize their procurement costs to remain competitive. Applying stochastic...

Trans-Pacific competition between Japanese and U.S. industries has provided powerful incentives for mutually beneficial economic cooperation between Japan and the United States. The benefits would be greatly enhanced by the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership, an international agreement that...